


as we share this simple night

by mockturtletale



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Insomnia, Jealousy, M/M, Sexually Fraught Napping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 02:15:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1572350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mockturtletale/pseuds/mockturtletale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tearing chunks of toast off with his teeth, Stiles changes the shape of Derek’s whole world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	as we share this simple night

**Author's Note:**

> Set not-so-immediately after the nogitsune incident. Almost everything is canon complicit, though neither Kate nor Malia are referenced at any point and any involvement they had in events thus far is largely ignored. Boyd and Erica and Allison are dead, Cora and Peter and Isaac are Currently Elsewhere, everything else is as we last found it in Beacon Hills. ( I think )

By the time the nogitsune and its aftermath are weathered, Derek is the one who has lost the most. 

Maybe not as far as the others are concerned. Maybe not to take only the last year or two into consideration. 

It isn’t a matter of who belonged to whom; which loss mattered more or mattered most. Allison was _theirs_ , though she was Scott’s first. Still Scott’s, in the end, when all was said and done. The twins had stayed for Scott, but they’d put their lives on the line for Scott’s friends - for Scott’s pack - right alongside Derek, shoulder to shoulder. Aiden had died in Derek’s arms. 

And Derek had held Isaac, the only one left standing that Derek could ever truly call his, in those same arms, when Isaac had come to say goodbye. Derek was the one who cried, that night, although he hadn’t shed any tears for Boyd or Erica, too numb at the time to really accept that they were gone, too stubborn and self-loathing since to let himself mourn. 

Isaac had been all that Derek had had left, and now he’s gone. 

In sum, all in, Derek’s loss both now and then ranks pretty high. Higher, he thinks, than can be said for a pack of teenagers that still have each other, still have _something_ \- compared to his nothing - although they’re younger and newer to this grief than he is and oh, how he envies them their youth and inexperience for that, for the first time ever. 

He won’t be surprised when it takes them what will feel like endless stretches of time and space turned pointless, tipped upside down and inside out and empty before they’re ready to move on, before they realize they don’t have any other choice because what has happened here will never make sense, will never fit in alongside the reasonable events of their lives. 

The kinds of death they’ve gotten into bed with has no respect for sense. 

Life has become irrational for each and every one of them. Meaningful only in absence; meaningless as any kind of constant. They risk their lives like that’s a decision they are old enough or wise enough to make, and they deal only in sacrifice, whether minuscule or absolute. 

Derek still hasn’t found a way to keep track of it all - is surer than sure by now that no way of thinking about it or dealing with their reality draws it in anything close to reason. 

They think until they are mindless. They reason until they are nonsensical. They use violence to pacify, and they love each other fiercely, wild with it. 

This is the reality of their lives now, and it’s true for each and every one of them. 

Derek has had more time and cause to grow something like accustomed to it. 

He isn’t surprised when he finds Stiles out in the woods alone, lost and savage in whatever comes after the aftermath; just before whatever is supposed to come next. 

Stiles has never been very good with the concept of down time. 

 

____

 

Derek can’t sleep, but that’s nothing new or unusual. 

He goes to bed at a reasonable time, sacks out on his sheets stripped down to his boxers with all the windows in the loft thrown wide, because it’s unseasonably warm for a time of year that’s already unpleasantly seasonably warm as is. 

By 3am he gives up the ghost, and by 3:15am he has pulled his jeans back on, has stuffed his feet back into his boots and dragged his jacket on over a tank top he found on top of his laundry basket. It’s still hot out, but Derek can’t be in outside spaces with too much of his skin on show. Bare means vulnerable, to Derek, and he is never that. Not anymore, if he can help it. 

He has no idea what draws him to the woods, but something does, and something is far more compelling than the nothing that gathers in the corners of his home, and so he goes. 

Stiles’ sleeves are short when Derek finds him raving at the moon. He’s pacing in a clearing, kicking rocks and branches out of his way where his sneakers encounter them, and he’s wearing jeans too, but his sleeves are so short they’re barely there. The shirt is grey, light enough to show his pit stains clearly, and he’s flushed, sweat beading on his upper lip, a sheen of it wet and gleaming across his forehead. 

It’s night time, but it’s still hot out, and the light of the moon makes his bare skin _shine_. 

The quiet between the horrors of the nogitsune and now have served Stiles well, Derek should notice. He’s filled out, even shot up a little more, and it’s not just his wild, grown out hair that makes him stand slightly taller than Derek, now. Otherwise, he’s a total shitshow. His clothes are wrinkled and mussed, the beneaths of his eyes so bruised they look sore. He’s paler than Derek has ever seen him, possessions by a thousand year old demon aside, and the tremor through all of his limbs is one Derek recognizes, the shake of his shoulders screaming for rest as loud as anything. His shirt barely meets the waistband of his jeans, and the near-nonexistent sleeves of it strain against the lean but now clearly defined muscle of his biceps. 

All that Derek sees is skin. 

All he can think as a shiver rips through him is that Stiles needs to cover up, Stiles needs to be more careful. 

Stiles doesn’t notice Derek invading his cleaning, doesn’t even look startled to see him standing there when Derek walks purposefully into his path for lack of knowing how to let Stiles know he’s here in some way that might be more delicate, more considerate. 

“Of course you’re here,” Stiles says, working Derek’s appearance into his monologue without acknowledging him otherwise, stepping neatly around him and continuing to pace, “because where else would you be? We’ve got nowhere to be, nothing to do. We should be sleeping. We’re supposed to be sleeping right now, like we can. Like we ever could. Is this the part where we stock up on normal human experiences until we can’t anymore? Until something shows up to remind us that we don’t get to live our lives, not ever? Because they’re not ours, Derek. They’re not. Were they before? Yours wasn’t. Hasn’t been for years and years and years. It’s -” Stiles’ hands go to his hair, and the movement pulls on his shirt, drags it up until Derek can see his bare belly, the bones of his hips, the line of hair that dusts between them. “It’s too fucking much,” Stiles concludes with feeling, anger making the words hard, frustration driving them, exhaustion drawing them soft. Derek knows those feelings, knows this combination of them in particular too well, and he agrees completely, although he doesn’t know how to say this out loud. 

So he holds out a hand to Stiles, instead. 

This, of all things, makes Stiles stop pacing. 

He stands stock still in the middle of the clearing, looking at Derek’s hand like it has teeth. And then he looks up into Derek’s face and his eyes narrow even further. 

“Are you … you’re you, right? Because I was on board with you being a hallucinatory symptom of my sleep deprivation, that’s par for the course around here, but then I figured you were actually here, because skulking around the woods in the middle of the night is your wheelhouse and all. The hand thing, though. Do you intend to lure me to my death? Are you here to drag me to my drowning? Because that I would not be on board with. I’m almost certain that modern day mermaids aren’t scheduled to happen until spring.” 

Derek sighs, perturbed to find that this is apparently going to take words. 

“That isn’t funny, Stiles. And neither is …” Derek glances at Stiles, pointedly raises his eyebrows, “whatever this is. It’s not safe, being out here like this, alone in the middle of the night. Won’t your father wonder where you are?” 

Stiles laughs, a mirthless thing, and stuffs his hands into his pockets in some small act of rebellion. 

“He won’t notice I’m gone. Night shift. All week. He won’t notice. He hasn’t noticed -” Derek can see clearly how close to breaking Stiles is, now. It looks like his soliloquy was all that was keeping him going, barely enough to keep him upright, because silent he looks winded, wounded in a million different ways that aren’t visible at all. His mouth struggles to form words, and Derek might have all the time in the world, but he does not have the patience for this. 

He shakes his head and breathes out through his nose, hard. He purses his mouth and makes a rudimentary attempt at telegraphing his movements, because Stiles is always hyper aware of everyone and everything, but he’s a wild card like this, and Derek has this insane urge to soothe the kid, to not spook him, even though he’s had to use intimidation tactics like a lifeline through their interactions to date. He steps forward, and then he steps forward once more. He slowly reaches for Stiles, and Stiles doesn’t move away. He lets Derek band a hand around his wrist, and he lets Derek tow him back down the path to the parking lot. 

When Derek leads him past his jeep, leads him to the passenger side of his own car instead, he glances back at Stiles to gauge his reaction. 

Stiles is staring at Derek’s hand, still around his wrist. His head is tilted and his lips are slightly parted, his eyes wide with something like wonder. 

And that seals the deal, for Derek. That’s all it takes for him to know that he’s doing the right thing, that for once his instincts aren’t leading him right into trouble. 

“Sleep,” he says, when he gets Stiles back to the loft and has carefully guided him through the living room, through to the bedroom, through the seemingly impossible task of unlacing his own shoes. 

“Sleep,” he says, softer, when Stiles is on his back in Derek’s bed and Derek is halfway out of the room, tired himself now, something in him settled. 

“Sleep,” he snorts to himself, wry and bitter, when he’s laid out on his own couch and the sun is starting to rise and he can know, without a doubt, that he’ll get no rest tonight. 

 

___

 

It’s afternoon when Derek wakes. 

He pads by the bedroom to get to the bathroom, and when he pauses by the doorway he sees Stiles turned over onto his stomach, one of his hands shoved up underneath Derek’s pillows and his jeans kicked off into a heap by the bed. 

Derek drops the lid of the toilet to muffle the sound of the flush, but Stiles hasn’t stirred when he checks on him again. 

It’s afternoon, and Derek has nothing else to do, so he goes back to sleep. 

 

____

 

The next time Derek wakes up it’s in darkness, to the sound of muffled chewing and the instant realization that he’s being watched. 

When he turns his head to look at Stiles he’s standing in the doorway, a bowl of cereal held in one hand, the angle of his elbow at odds with the long, lazy curve his body makes against the door jamb. He’s staring intently into his cereal when Derek looks at him, but Derek can still feel the weight of his gaze, the heat it left behind like a warm palm pressed to his skin. There’s always been something different about how Stiles watches Derek, some sense of idle curiosity that somehow does not make Derek uncomfortable the way every other kind of scrutiny does. Stiles watches him without intent, and Derek likes that. He’s not used to being looked at like he isn’t a tool for this or a way to achieve that, someone to use and mold for a purpose, with malice. Stiles reminds Derek, probably without meaning to, that he’s just a person. That he’s someone. Someone with a crick in their neck, right now. 

“You want french toast?” Derek asks, voice a little raw from honest to god rest, because he woke up with a hankering and Stiles doesn’t look set to get going any time soon. He isn’t wearing shoes, and Derek doesn’t feel especially inclined to kick him out. 

“Um. Yeah,” Stiles answers after a moment of consideration, forehead creased up in bewilderment like the desire for food is something he’s surprised to find in himself, and Derek knows that feeling too. 

“Okay,” Derek says, sitting up and deciding he isn’t letting Stiles go until his belly is full, until Derek is satisfied that the skin under his eyes looks a little less thin, a little less dark. 

 

____

 

Stiles goes home after they have breakfast for dinner, helping to clear up before the does, and the strangest thing about it is how strange it hadn’t been. 

Stiles isn’t Derek’s pack. Derek feels no special inclination to protect him. 

Stiles has put his life on the line for Derek when nothing like biological make up made him do it, and Derek is grateful, but Derek doesn’t understand it. 

Scott is a terrible alpha. Scott is a terrible human being. He’s selfish to the point of self-martyrdom and Derek could be furious about it if he thought Scott purposefully put himself and his own superficial needs ahead of the happiness and survival of those he claims to love, but that’s the worst thing about it - Scott genuinely just does not seem to notice. He is naturally inclined to be blind, to act without thinking, and where Derek’s mistake was his inability to lead, his inability to connect with his pack on an emotional level, Scott uses his successes there to bend the will of his friends in the wrong direction, to push a connection that should be healthy and thriving and rich to breaking point. Almost always for the wrong reasons. 

Scott’s becoming a better person. Slowly but surely he is learning to listen and he’s figuring out how to look and see, and Derek has something like hope that one day, Scott will lead. 

Derek doesn’t think about saving Stiles from his alpha. He doesn’t think about saving them both from themselves, because although he doesn’t claim to know Stiles at all, he knows him well enough to see clearly that Scott is a ship Stiles has always been determined to drown with. 

Once upon a time Derek thought Stiles as stupid and misguided as Scott is, but now Derek sees his loyalty for what it is. He doesn’t want Stiles’ loyalty for himself, but he’d like to know something like it, some day. 

Derek sticks to the periphery of Scott’s pack because he needs to keep an eye on them and if he can help it, he’ll keep them safe. 

They aren’t his. He doesn’t want in. His life is difficult enough as is without counting the lives of a handful of idiot teenagers among his responsibilities. Maybe he wants a family, and maybe they’re the closest thing he has to it, the best chance he’ll ever get, but they only rely on him when they absolutely have to, and he’s better off without them. 

Scott is not Derek’s alpha. Scott’s pack are not Derek’s home. 

Stiles is nothing particularly special to him, nothing he can call ‘his.’ 

None of this explains what having Stiles sleep in his bed has unearthed in Derek. 

 

____

 

Weeks go by and nothing happens. No new brand of nasty shows up in town, and Derek doesn’t hear from Scott or Stiles. Kira texts him a few times, because she seems strangely determined to check in with Derek, to check up on him like he’s her responsibility, like he’s her anything. Derek responds because he finds her sweet, and because he hasn’t had to come to terms with a situation in which killing her is the right thing to do. Yet. 

Isaac doesn’t call. Cora does. Derek sees Scott out by the preserve one day, nods when Scott waves. He catches Lydia’s scent outside the library, and doesn’t think to wonder if she’d left in a hurry, if she’d left to avoid him, because he doesn’t much care. 

Weeks go by and nothing happens. 

 

____

 

One more week goes by, before something happens. 

 

____

 

It’s 5am, and Derek hasn’t slept. The fluorescent lights cast a harsh glare, and the one above the milk fridge blinks, irritating Derek. His reactions rise faster and sharper to the surface when he’s so far beyond tired. He scowls. 

He’s still scowling when he walks by the soda aisle, but all expression falls from his face as he backtracks to stand at the mouth of it, staring at what he sees with his mouth set in a hard, flat line. 

Stiles is perusing the energy drinks, his toes lifting and falling in his sneakers, his hands in his pockets but his fingers drumming madly against his thighs, clearly visible and looking for all the world like a challenge to Derek. A challenge on him, specifically. 

Just like last time, Stiles doesn’t hear him approach, and Derek wonders at what must be pounding through his head, how loud it must be to overcome his usually keen senses like this. 

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” he asks, because Stiles is 18 now, he’s something like an adult, and even before that was the case it wasn’t Derek’s job to tell him what to do. 

Stiles doesn’t turn to look at him, looks down at Derek’s boots lined up next to his sneakers instead, and Derek watches the tired grin appear in profile. 

“Why? You got a better one?” 

 

____

 

Derek stays, this time. 

He has Stiles asleep in his bed all over again, and now he can watch over him from right by his side. 

Stiles doesn’t snore, but he moves around a lot. Not continuously, but effusively. Every hour or so his whole body will go in search of comfort like it’s an adventure that his every limb is a vital part of. He reaches and he splays, his throat long and bare against Derek’s sheets, the tendons in his neck standing to attention. His fingers knot into pillowcases, scrabble until they find Derek’s, and his feet are so cold they startle Derek awake twice, his knee between Derek’s, his heels rough against Derek’s calves. 

They share space like it’s theirs. Like it’s never been just Derek’s. 

Stiles’ hair is softer than it looks, when he gently butts his head up under Derek’s chin, not settling until Derek lets him stay. He moves into it when Derek’s stubble rasps against the round of his shoulder. 

For the first time he can remember, Derek wants to be awake all night. He doesn’t just want to make sure Stiles is safe, he wants to luxuriate in the knowledge that he is, and that he made it so he could be. 

But he sleeps, and sleeps well, warm and content in Stiles’ scent and the message that sends to his subconscious - to his wolf. 

Stiles is right here, so Derek doesn’t have to worry. 

 

___

 

( “You could … uh,” Stiles cleared his throat, purposefully rearranged his face into something more sure, something less thoughtful. Hopeful, maybe. “You should stay.” 

“Here. With me,” he elaborated when Derek didn’t answer. “In your own bed. With me.” 

He’d been sitting on the edge of Derek’s bed in nothing but his boxers, his shirt still in his hands, his fingers hiding inside hems and under sleeves like he was trying to master a cat’s cradle in secret. Like his hands might give up the same secret he tried to hide by keeping his eyes on the floor by Derek’s feet. 

He hadn’t looked small, on Derek’s bed. He’d clearly been exhausted again, and his shoulders slumped under the weight of troubles too big for him to carry, but he sat still and he weathered it. He didn’t come to Derek for help, but he accepted it without Derek having to ever really offer, and here he was asking for more. 

Derek waited until Stiles looked up at him, to answer. 

He needed to see it in Stiles’ eyes that he was sure, and he had. 

Stiles eyes were huge. Bruised again. But they were bright with conviction, his jaw set like he’d been gearing up to bully Derek into it. 

But. 

“Please,” he said instead, dropping the shirt to the floor and folding his hands over his kneecaps, holding on like he needed something else. 

Derek couldn’t think of a good enough reason to say ‘no.’ 

 

____

 

They wake up tangled together. 

Derek hadn’t at any point explicitly invited Stiles into his personal space, but he hadn’t pushed him away when he’d burrowed his way in, either. 

His entire right side is too warm, touch-hot when he wakes up with Stiles plastered up against it, tucked into him, but Derek’s arm is wrapped right around Stiles’ waist, his thumb sneaking down under the waistband of Stiles’ boxers, keeping him there. 

Derek needed to say no for his own benefit, not for Stiles’. 

When big brown eyes blink open and look at Derek like he’s a dream, when Stiles’ nose scrunches up against the glare of sunlight the gap in the curtains can’t keep out but his entire face lifts into a smile, Derek stops thinking about anything else, forgets about everyone else. He looks into Stiles’ face, smudged slack with sleep, wakefulness still dawning there brighter than ten suns rising all at once, and Derek thinks ‘mine,’ Derek feels _home_. 

“We should. Uh,” Derek tries, mostly unsuccessfully, to clear his throat. “Breakfast.” 

“Breakfast as a verb,” Stiles says, wriggling into an impossibly long stretch, pale and perfect, still slanted close to stay touching Derek. Making fun of him, but not unkindly. Smiling at him first thing in the morning. Almost naked, in his bed. “I love that. I could get used to this.” 

So they have breakfast for dinner again, and Stiles talks and talks and talks, filling up Derek’s loft like just his presence can breathe life into it. Into Derek, who sits and watches and listens, contributing when Stiles pushes, but frighteningly content to soak it all in, otherwise. 

Tearing chunks of toast off with his teeth, Stiles changes the shape of Derek’s whole world. Because he’s always been different, more in a way that wasn’t anything to do with human or werewolf or anything besides. He moves at a different speed, thinks in eons, feels in stereo. Even out on the outskirts of Derek’s life, Stiles had been a distraction. 

And then Derek had stopped to look. He’d watched when he’d had time to, when the debris cleared and Stiles had crept closer, come into focus. 

That had been bad enough. That had been terrifying. Or, it would have been, if Derek had had the self-awareness to see it for what it was when he’d been dragging Stiles back home like he’d found a new toy, like he’d found something he’d thought he’d lost. 

But now Stiles is here, and he isn’t leaving, and it’s getting worse. He’s sitting across from Derek shirtless, the scent of his sweat still sweet enough for Derek to smell from the bedroom from here. He’s eating with his mouth open, getting crumbs all over Derek’s table, his floor, and he’s kicking at Derek’s shins with his bare feet when they disagree, when he deems Derek’s responses worthy of punishment. Like he thinks that’s what this is. 

Stiles is letting Derek in. He’s letting Derek really see him, for all that he is, all he has to give, and Derek doesn’t know why Stiles is trusting him with this, because he’s sure it’s too good to be wasted on him. He’s fractured and he’s bruised, broken in a way that has spoiled him and struck too deep. He’s bitter, inside and out, and Stiles is sweet, only learning now that that’s something that his enemies can’t resist, something that makes Derek want to sink his teeth in. 

They’re spending time together like there’s no place they’d rather be, no one else they’d rather be with. And that’s true for Derek, because he has nothing and no one and even when he did he wanted Stiles around, wanted Stiles stealing his chair and smirking at him when he wouldn’t make an issue of it, watching Derek watch him like a dare, like he was saying ‘Yeah, I’m looking at you and all I’m seeing is you, I’m not sizing you up or plotting your doom, I’m just looking. Because I can.’ 

Stiles sees Derek, and now he’s letting Derek see him. 

When Stiles leaves, eventually, so much later that it’s almost early enough to be morning again, he does so with something that sounds like an apology and an accusation. 

“I’d better go now, I guess,” he says, eyeing Derek. Pinning him in place with a look that’s brand new, because it isn’t without intent, but it definitely isn’t calculating. 

It seems to Derek like maybe Stiles is waiting. Hoody in hand, one foot out the door. 

“Yeah. I guess,” Derek says, because he doesn’t want to disappoint Stiles, but he doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t know what Stiles is waiting for, and he definitely doesn’t know how to offer it. 

“Bye, then. Thanks for staying,” Stiles says before he leaves, mostly turned away already. 

This doesn’t give Derek the chance to correct him - to tell him that he’d been the one to stay.

Stiles is gone, but he was here. 

He’ll be back, and it’s getting worse.

He’s coming back, and Derek can barely stand to wait. 

 

____

 

_I’m good. Getting there. How ‘bout you? Trying, at least?_

Isaac had been something like in love with Allison, well past that point with Scott, and even he is handling his shit better than Derek is, right now. 

Derek is 24 years old and he has a crush. None of that sounds impossible, until you factor in who he has a crush on, and compare them to Derek’s previous paramours. Derek thinks in words that Stiles would use, now. Everything is awful. 

Except for Stiles. 

Who is literally everything good in Derek’s life right now, and has always been a common thread of light as long as he’s been around. Even when he was only showing up to demand help or poke holes in Derek’s plans he did so passionately, with gusto. He’s always been untouchable, to Derek. But now he’s within touching distance, and he’s letting Derek touch. Derek wants to _have_. 

So he calls Cora, and lets her talk at him about her life for two hours. 

He steps outside into the sunshine and goes jogging on purpose for the first time in months, when previously his only exercise had been running from things, running away. 

He cleans the loft. 

He gives five more junk mail subscription letters Peter’s address. 

He thinks about calling Scott, but texts Kira instead, attaching a video of some Aikido techniques he’s been thinking about incorporating into his total lack of fighting style, asking for her opinion. 

He’s thinking about learning a sixth language when his phone buzzes on the window sill. 

_Kno any good bedtime stories?_ Stiles asks, and Derek puts his phone back down when he’s read it, resists the urge to put his head in his hands. 

Derek doesn’t sleep well at the best of times, but it’s been worse since Stiles made it better. The last thing he needs is the knowledge that it’s the same for Stiles. The last thing Stiles needs is for him to use that as an excuse to get him over here. 

_no. try the library._

 

____

 

After that, Stiles doesn’t text him again, and Derek doesn’t find Stiles wandering through town sleepless and in need of a rescue in the middle of the night. 

He does find him strolling down main street in the middle of the afternoon one day, but by then it looks like he’s already found his rescuer. And unlike Derek, this guy is actually knight material. 

“Hey, Stiles. Deputy Parrish,” Derek greets them, trying to ensure his smile is warm, because he is happy to see them, happier still to see them together. But it’s a brittle kind of happiness. Sharp like a broken bottle. Derek needs to make sure the points stay pointing inward. 

“Derek, you can call me Ben. We went to high school together, man. The uniform doesn’t change that!” 

Even if it did, Parrish isn’t wearing his uniform today. He’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and his face is cracked right open around a grin. He looks like he’s having a good time. 

“Yeah, Derek,” Stiles says, stressing his name for some reason, throwing his arm easily around Parrish’s shoulders because he lives to make Derek’s life impossible. “Call him Ben.” 

Derek vows there and then to never refer to him as anything more familiar than ‘Parrish.’ 

“Sure. Bye,” Derek says, getting at least ten feet away from them before he lets his face fall. 

When he looks back, Stiles’ arm is still around Parrish. They’re both laughing. 

 

____

 

Maybe it’s just a general sort of loneliness, Derek thinks. Grasps, really. 

While he was in the process of losing almost everyone he cared about for the second time around, he’d also been in the process of figuring out _how_ to care for people again, and maybe some small part of that had survived the nogitsune’s attack. Maybe Derek still needs company, still needs family, and he’s reaching out for Stiles as someone who once upon a time could have been part of that. 

Derek goes to see Scott. 

 

____

 

“ - and I can’t really help him with that, you know? I think he thought it’d be different, after … when … when Allison died. But we loved her in different ways. She loved us in different ways. I couldn’t help him like he needed.” 

Scott is sitting cross-legged on a picnic table in his backyard, Derek sprawling across the grass below him more in a nod to the beautiful day it is than as any kind of visible bow to the hierarchy here. 

He squints up into the sun, frowning. 

“No one made him leave with Chris, Scott. He wanted to. He thought that was what was best for him, and maybe it was. He’s okay, now.” Derek wonders how to say this without being blunt. “You … you’re not his alpha, Scott.” 

Scott looks down at him, hands folded into his lap. “I know. But I could have been. Maybe I should have been?” 

He doesn’t look at Derek as he speaks, so Derek leans up on his elbows and glares at him until he does. 

“He isn’t gone forever, Scott. He needed this time away from everything, from here - not from us - and when he gets back he’ll need an alpha. Then you can worry yourself sick about what’s best for Isaac, okay?” 

Scott’s expression starts to slip into a frown, dips into some comically clear twist of confusion before it lifts up into a grin again, and Scott is back to looking like a puppy with a treat. 

“Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, Derek.” 

“You’re welcome,” Derek tells him, because he’s always been helpful, he’s always cared, it’s just the making that clear and offering it up kindly and freely that he needs to keep working on. 

They hang out a while longer, that afternoon, bonding briefly over their mutual respect and awe for Kira, Scott kicking out at Derek’s boots when Derek teases him, Derek standing up to cuff Scott around the head because sure he’s an alpha now and Derek is not, but he’s still just a kid in ways that have nothing to do with age or rank. 

Melissa smiles at Derek, genuinely pleased to see him when he passes through the kitchen on his way out, and she stops him to ask him how he is, thanks him for coming to check in with Scott. 

This is a home Derek is welcome in, and that’s probably been true for quite a while now, but Derek hadn’t let himself really and truly realize it until today. 

Derek doesn’t have a family, doesn’t have a pack anymore, and the only people he can still try to call his left him here alone because they needed things he couldn’t provide for them. He’s learning how to have the same hope he gave Scott for Isaac, though, and to his surprise that hope is getting easier and easier to hold onto - coming closer and settling deep rather than crumbling to pieces in his hands like every other kind of hope he’s ever had. 

The loft seems different when Derek returns to it - vast and empty with some kind of potential now where the corners had fostered shadow like slow brewing disaster, before. 

Sure, Derek is only realizing he has things that he’s had for quite a while now, but that in itself is a major step for him - it’s been a long time since he was able to accept the thought that something was or could be his, that claim was something he could lay to someone that he needed. 

Sitting in his apartment with all the lights on, with his shoes kicked off and his feet up on his couch, his hands cushioning the back of his head, Derek thinks through and counts and compiles the people who are his. 

He has Scott, and he has Melissa. He has Kira and he has Lydia. He has Deaton, and he has the Sheriff, and he has Cora, who is here for him the most, not here at all. One day they’ll have Isaac again, maybe Jackson too, and though he doesn’t yet know if he wants him, Derek has Peter. Derek has friends in this town that he’d had when his family were still the center of it, and if he wanted to or if he needed them, he knows he could count them again, count them newly, now. 

Derek is not alone, and he doesn’t need to be lonely. 

 

____

 

Sleeping is still an issue. 

Walking around town at three in the morning when the only lights still on are neon and everyone smells like sweat and smoke and desperation shouldn’t help, but it does. Then, Beacon Hills reminds him of someplace else, someplace bigger, and Derek doesn’t wish he wasn’t here, but it’s nice to be reminded that he wasn’t always, sometimes. 

Someone stumbles into Derek, and Derek doesn’t mind. He helps them get their bearings again, hands automatically going to their shoulders because part of the healing process is learning how to be tactile again, and he’s about to ask if they’re okay when the body in his hands leans so far into his space that Derek can’t avoid the burst of Stiles’ scent that washes over him in a wave, crashing through him and crushing his lungs. 

“Danny! Danny! Oh, oh. Hey … Derek,” Stiles himself says, tumbling out of the shadows like an assault on Derek’s senses, looking and smelling and sounding so _right_. 

In an instant this Danny guy is out of Derek’s space, yanked in against Stiles’ side instead, and neither of them are drunk, just horsing around. The air around them sizzles when it touches Derek’s tongue, burning with energy and something like chemistry, something that bites at Derek like a thousand tiny electrical shocks. Stiles is wearing plaid again, jeans tighter than they have any right to be, and he looks tired but happy, grinning at Danny like he’s the moon, rather than the sun, like he helps Stiles rest even if he can’t bring him to sleep. 

Danny is almost as tall as Derek, about as broad in the chest. They’ve met before, Derek vaguely remembers, when Danny grins at Derek, and he has dimples and he seems charming; he seems sweet. Derek wants to rip his throat out with his teeth. 

“I’d ask what you’re doing out here in the middle of the night, but we’re all good buddies of insomnia’s, here. Derek, you remember Danny? Danny, this is not-Miguel, my not-cousin.” 

“Nice to meet you … as you, I guess,” Danny says, still smiling. Stiles reaches for Danny’s hand, knotting their fingers together, and Danny doesn’t bat an eyelid. Derek shoves his hands into his pockets with a little too much force, the beginnings of claws picking pinprick holes through the material, through his skin. 

“Yeah, sure,” Derek says, because he’s made a hell of a lot of progress as a semi-human being who can now exist semi-peacefully in the world, but that’s as nice as he can be right now. 

“We were just wandering,” Stiles explains, though Derek definitely did not ask, “Fighting our non-demonic demons together, you know?” 

“Okay,” Derek says, gruff and almost monosyllabic like it’s 2012 again, because something about Stiles cuts right through everything that’s happened to Derek since, everything that’s happened to Derek ever, maybe. He feels Stiles to his bones, but it’s Danny who has his thumb padded into the shallow little dip next to Stiles’ wrist bone and Derek doesn’t want to stick around, he can’t stand here and watch this happen. 

“I have to go … I have … bye,” he says, and then, “Bye Danny,” after a beat, because yes, he absolutely wants to pull this boy’s body apart until he’s in pieces, but he wouldn’t, he’s newly socially capable and he won’t let that progress go to waste just because Stiles makes him feel feral in the good _and_ bad ways. 

“Bye Derek,” Danny waves, and Stiles frowns after him. 

Derek isn’t lonely in general. There’s absolutely nothing general about it. 

 

____

 

The next day is a Sunday, and Derek doesn’t sleep. 

The day after that is a Monday, and Derek doesn’t sleep then, either. 

Today is Thursday, Derek thinks. He’s pretty sure. Probably. Maybe? 

“It’s Saturday, Derek. And you’re talking out loud. Also, you didn’t lock the door. Hi.” 

Derek closes one eye against the splay of Stiles’ that fan out before his eyes. There’s still one standing there when his vision gets its shit under control, though, and that’s not good. 

“Jesus. Okay. Christ.” Stiles pushes himself out of the lean he’d been perfecting in Derek’s doorway and walks towards him, which is the exact opposite of Derek wants to happen. Sort of. 

“Where’s your jacket?” Stiles asks, but answers the question for himself when he tugs at the lone sleeve that the back of Derek’s couch hasn’t eaten yet. At some point Derek lay down here, half hoping the couch would eat him too. 

“Up, up,” Stiles is saying then, tugging Derek’s jacket on for him, dressing him now, and then bending to his knees to lift Derek’s feet into his boots, lacing them up quick and tight. 

“You shouldn’t … don’t,” Words are impossible, but Derek tries to shove at Stiles shoulder, tries to tell him with his body to leave, to leave Derek alone before he starts to need this all the time. ‘This’ being Stiles here, Stiles’ hands on him, Stiles helping. 

But as usual, Stiles only uses Derek’s weaknesses to both their advantage, tugging Derek’s arm around his shoulders and taking his weight when he makes him stand, leading him out the door (pausing to lock it, pausing again to lecture Derek on home security) and downstairs to the parking lot, all but shoving him into the jeep. 

Derek might fall asleep, might black the fuck, doesn’t even know how it happens, but when he opens his eyes again they’re parked in Stiles’ driveway and Stiles is looking at him like he’s dying, again. 

“M’not dying,” Derek slurs, promises, and Stiles cracks a grin for that, at least. 

“Not on my watch, you’re not.” 

 

____

 

Derek finds his footing in consciousness again when he’s standing barefoot in Stiles’ bedroom, shirtless and stripped of his jeans while Stiles tugs the curtains closed over the afternoon sun. 

“What … what is this?” he manages to ask, and Stiles’ shirt is hiding his face when it happens, but Derek’s sure he can hear him roll his eyes. 

“This is a bedroom, Derek. And this is a bed. It’s where people do this thing called sleeping. Ideally, at least,” he adds as an afterthought, sheepish because it’s not like he’s any better at this business of rest than Derek is. 

“We seem to be better at it together?” He’s sitting on the edge of his own bed this time, and unlike the last time they had this non-conversation his hands are on either side of his knees. He puts his weight on his hands, letting his head fall forward between his shoulders, and Derek doesn’t know if he realizes what he’s doing or not, but the movement presents a perfect view of the back of Stiles’ neck, the slope of his back and the broad, beautiful line of his shoulders. 

“We shouldn’t be good at anything together,” Derek says, dazed, “We’re …” Stiles looks up at him, waits patiently for Derek to continue with his bottom lip plumped out, ready to argue, and Derek needs to sit down. Not next to Stiles. “We are nothing alike. We have nothing in common. We shouldn’t be able to help each other, we shouldn’t be anything _to_ each other.” 

Stiles only shrugs. 

“Sure. That’s the rational take on things. Like … I’m big on logic. I love knowing exactly what I’m flouting, you know? But look around you, Derek. Welcome to Beacon Hills, a town protected from the many and murder-y forces of evil by a rag tag bunch of werewolves, teens, and teen werewolves. I’m supposed to be a kid, still. You’re supposed to have a family. You’re supposed to be off in a big city somewhere, using your degree to do something important and rewarding. I’m supposed to be worried about lacrosse and SATs and bad breath and dumb school dances.” Stiles shakes his head like he’s shaking out the very idea of those things, tossing them off like water droplets after a shower he hadn’t meant to get caught in. 

He’s still looking up at Derek when he says, 

“Do you know what I worry about most?” 

And Derek shakes his head, then, because he doesn’t. There’s too much to choose from, too much to make it easy to narrow down. 

“You, Derek. I worry about you. And it used to be because someone has to, right? It used to be this afterthought, like ticking off one friend or family member after another. But then the nogitsune took me, and when I got myself back I wasn’t capable of worrying about anyone anymore. Because I’d been the danger. What I needed to protect you all from was me. I lost my right to care about any of you.” 

He doesn’t pause to give Derek a place to contradict him, obviously doesn’t expect him to, doesn’t say this so he will, but Derek wants to, anyway. Derek will, eventually. 

“But now I worry about you without trying. Without having to.” 

Stiles hands are balled up into fists, one overlapping the other, and Derek’s heart is in his mouth. 

“You’re always my first thought, my go to. I don’t sleep, and I wonder if you are. I wake up and I wish there was something I could do to help you get some rest. I make dinner for my dad and me and I wonder if you’re eating, worry you’re not. Every single time my phone rings I stop breathing because I’m sure it’s someone calling to tell me you’re gone, you left again. When I don’t see you for a few days it’s worse because I think about how if you did leave, or if something happened to you, I probably wouldn’t even know in time to do something about it. Because I wouldn’t. You wouldn’t call me if you needed help, would you? I had to go over to your place today to see for myself, I had to go check up on you because … you wouldn’t call, would you? You don’t need me.” 

Stiles’ head has fallen into his hands now, and from up close Derek can see that they’re shaking. He’s on his knees in front of Stiles, somehow, and he doesn’t know how that happened, but he means to take Stiles’ wrists in his hands, he does that on purpose for the first time ever with intent. 

“I’m working on it,” he tells Stiles, pleading with him to understand. “If I … if I had to call someone, I’d call you. I would,” and that’s true. 

“But I don’t want to need you, Stiles. I don’t want to be someone else you have to worry about. I’m not going anywhere, I can promise you that. So lets … can we go from there? Can you trust me on that?” 

He lets Stiles take his wrists out of his hands, and then he lets Stiles put his hands on his shoulders, his thumbs brushing the base of Derek’s throat. 

“Sure. We can do anything you want, once you stay.” 

“Can we sleep? Because I don’t know about you, but I could use some of that.” 

Stiles smiles, and Derek notices for the first time the way his mouth is cracked and dry, the way right up close you can’t miss the blue hue to the skin under his eyes. 

“Sounds perfect.” 

They climb into Stiles’ bed together like this is something they’ve done a thousand times before, Stiles holding the covers up for Derek to slide under, Derek passing his phone to Stiles to put on the nightstand. They burrow down under the comforter even though it’s not a cold day, feet tangling together too cold but just right. 

Derek falls asleep with Stiles’ arms around him, his skin hot and his hold fierce, his jaw angled perfectly into the space between Derek’s shoulder blades. 

Derek falls asleep. 

 

____

 

It doesn’t happen all the time, and it doesn’t happen with any kind of regularity that Derek can predict, but it becomes easier, it happens much more. 

Stiles winds up having a key to Derek’s loft, and nine out of every texts Derek gets are from Stiles. Scott knows it’s happening, the Sheriff makes all three of them breakfast on one or two very memorable occasion, and one night Derek climbs neatly through Stiles’ window to find Danny there ahead of him. 

Danny and Stiles are both sitting at Stiles’ desk in front of his computer, and this is a familiar sight, but Derek doesn’t want to rip Danny limb from limb this time. Stiles neither, for that matter. 

“Oh, hey,” Stiles says mildly, smiling softly, distracted, at Derek, “Sorry, we’re just finishing up here, I’ll be done soon.” 

Danny looks between Stiles and Derek like he’s never seen either of them before, but Stiles doesn’t notice because he’s too busy flipping through a notebook in search of something, and Derek doesn’t say anything because he gets much more satisfaction from grinning sharply at Danny as he sits at the edge of Stiles’ bed and takes his boots off, instead. 

“Cool, just wake me up if I fall asleep first,” Derek says, still grinning, as he stretches out over the covers and gets comfortable. 

Danny’s eyes stay wide until Derek’s slip shut. 

 

____

 

When Stiles shows up at Derek’s loft three days later, something is wrong. Something is off. 

He’s back to edging into Derek’s space again, when he had become totally at home in it. 

He’s held together stiffly, a clash of limbs put together in angles that don’t work when he hovers by Derek’s couch, and Derek doesn’t need to scent the air, he knows nervous anxiety when he sees it shape Stiles. 

“What? Did something happen?” he asks, when what he really wants to ask is if Stiles has changed his mind, if they can’t be whatever they’ve become to one another, anymore. Some bizarre mix of friends that are more than that, less than that, all at once. That’s what he wants to ask, because that’s where his mind immediately leaps to, but he doesn’t, because he’s afraid to hear Stiles’ answer. 

“N-no. Not yet?” Stiles asks, and that’s wrong again, because Stiles never asks anyone anything. He tells. He refuses. He argues. He wonders. He protests. He enthuses. He doesn’t ask. 

Derek tracks his movements as they take Stiles right up into Derek’s personal space, and he stays still, waiting for Stiles to figure out whatever he’s confused about, waits for him to find whatever answers he’s looking for from Derek. 

But then Stiles very slowly, very deliberately puts his hands on Derek’s hips and ducks in to press their mouths together, and that’s not a question Derek can be an answer to. 

“Stiles, no,” he says, stepping back and pushing Stiles away at the same time. “You don’t want … if you’re … you should -” 

Stiles is still standing so very still, holding himself so purposefully that Derek barely recognizes him, but he tilts his head at this, doesn’t run away or try to muscle his way back into Derek’s space. 

“You think this is a sexual identity crisis thing?” he asks, seeming nothing but surprised and patient about it, so Derek goes with that. 

“You’re … you’re not a kid, anymore, but you’re still young and with everything that’s always happening around here I doubt you’ve had a lot of time to figure out if -” 

“If I’m into dudes?” Stiles is smiling now, his patience starting to seem more like wry and kind pity. Derek frowns. 

“Derek, I’ve known I was into dudes since I was fourteen. I’ve known I was into one dude very specifically since I was sixteen, which I will remind you at this juncture was two entire years ago. Two very, very long years. Two pretty shirtless years, in the dude’s case, because it can’t have escaped your notice that you’re kind of a jerk, that way.” 

“Stiles,” Derek starts, desperately trying to think of an argument that will convince Stiles he’s wrong about this, wrong about him. 

“ _Derek_ ,” Stiles interrupts, his hands making an aborted move to reach for him again before he stops them, shoving them into his pockets instead because that’s a theme, for them, apparently. “Parrish asked if you were my ex, that day we bumped into you in town. And Danny asked if you were single, that night you bumped into us outside Jungle. He asked if I was single after you came over and did your ‘draw me like one of your french girls’ lean all over my bed right in front of him, and the thing is … I am. I am single, and you are single, but that didn’t sound like the right answer either time he asked.” 

Derek nods, because he knows the feeling. He knows how that goes. For a long time he wasn’t single, he was incapable of dating, instead, and now he’s something else entirely. 

“I told him I was waiting. And I came over here because I realized that maybe I shouldn’t be. Maybe I don’t have to be, but if you don’t want me like I want you, if you still don’t want to need me like you said -” 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Derek interrupts, because it’s important that Stiles knows. “I meant that I didn’t … I don’t want to be an obligation for you. I don’t want to be someone that only makes your life more difficult, more complicated.” 

Stiles nods, left foot kicking at the heel of his right, his shoulders slumped like he’s shrinking into whatever he’s perceiving as rejection, in that, so Derek continues. 

“I don’t want the way I feel about you to be any more complicated than it already is. I want to … I want to just want you, and have that be … it. Be one good thing that I can have without ties, without clauses or conditions.” 

Stiles’ head snaps up, his eyes searching for Derek’s. 

“Wait, you. What? You -” 

“Want you. I want you,” Derek says, knowing now that he can, that Stiles will be able to see it for what it is, decide for himself if he still wants Derek, after all. 

But Stiles doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move forward or backward, just stays exactly where he is, staring at Derek. 

“Are you … is that okay?”

Stiles only blinks. 

“Is that not what you wanted to hear?” 

Stiles’ eyes go saucer wide and his hands flail out of his pockets, lift up into the air around his face, into his hair, his whole body getting animated all at once. 

“That’s literally word for word exactly what I wanted to hear. I’ve thought about you saying that to me for years, but it was a fantasy, you know? You fall asleep thinking about something for forever, thinking about it then because it’s everything you want and something you want to keep to yourself, keep special or secret or safe or whatever, and then you don’t sleep for a few months and everything goes dark, you stop wanting anything. But you come back online and get damsel’d by the only guy you’ve ever been in love with and then you’re sleeping-together buddies in the not fun way, not that our time together hasn’t been excellent, but it’s been very clothed, you know, and now … wow. I came over here expecting you to toss me out. I put this off for as long as I did because I didn’t think I could sleep on my own again yet and I never for one second thought that you’d … want me,” he paces his way through this monologue, back and forth across Derek’s floorboards, but he comes to a stop in front of Derek now, and says “You want me,” quietly, full of awe, like he’s trying it on out loud. 

“Yes,” Derek says, because ‘yeah’ just won’t cut it, on this. He nods, too. Vehemently. 

“Well … great,” Stiles says, nodding too. “That’s really great, I’m very happy about this. Thank you. For … being into me, I guess.” And then he stands there in front of Derek, unmoving again. 

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume you’ve never thought about what might happen after this moment?” Derek is smiling, happiness bright in his words, and he leans back against the wall behind him, crossing his arms across his chest. 

Stiles frowns. At Derek’s crossed arms, specifically. 

“No, I definitely thought about what happens after this. Like, a lot. Copiously, Derek,” he winces, but Derek only lifts an eyebrow in response, interest definitely piqued. “It’s actually just the ‘this’ part that I seem to have skipped over? Do you have any ideas?” 

Derek laughs, and Stiles looks at him like this is an alien sound, like he can’t believe he just made Derek make it. 

“We could take a nap?” 

“Please tell me you’re kidding,” Stiles says, looking at Derek in honest to god dismay, “because any other time that would sound like the best idea ever, but right now I’m kind of stuck on the idea of like … your mouth. And also your hands. And weirdly, your calves. Can I touch your calves? Is that a weird thing to ask? Do I get to ask you weird things now? Because I have a whole situation with your pelvis that’s about to become the elephant in the room if I don’t.” 

If this continues, they will spend all day standing here in the living room talking about how into one another they are, and make no mistake, that sounds pretty excellent to Derek, but also they’re kind of giving one another express permission to touch, right now, and Derek had a great night’s sleep last night, so that’s nothing at all to do with how he doesn’t have the patience for words right now. 

“I have another idea,” he says, and Stiles looks at him with bright eyes, waving a hand to tell him to go on, so Derek does. 

He picks Stiles up with one arm banded around the backs of his knees, and he lifts until he has scooped Stiles up over his shoulder. He preens at the sound of surprise Stiles makes, the one that very quickly becomes one of interest, and he strides back to his bedroom, dumping Stiles on his bed and following him down. 

“Wow,” Stiles breathes, crawling backwards with his weight on his hands, kicking off his shoes and tugging his shirt up over his head at the same time, “This was an excellent idea, 10/10, would participate in again.” 

“You’re a genius, now take your clothes off and come here, get over here right now.” 

Stiles is grinning and making grabby hands, taking off every single thing he’s wearing and doing so on Derek’s bed, so Derek - being a genius - does exactly as he’s told. 

“You also respond very well to instruction,” Stiles says quietly against his mouth when Derek is on his hands and knees over him, totally lost to the sight and feel of him, “Just in case that’s something you wanted feedback on. You can absolute cite me as a reference.” 

 

____

 

“Jesus, Stiles, you’re so -” 

“Hot? Gorgeous? Devastatingly sexy?” 

“Yes,” Derek pants, dipping his head to breathe against the sweat slick skin of Stiles’ throat, because maybe Stiles can still talk and form thoughts, but Derek is already wrecked by this. 

“Liar liar pants on fire,” Stiles sing-songs, lifting up out of Derek’s space so he can sit astride his hips, “You’re the trophy wife here, buddy,” his hands are tracing the line of Derek’s abs, his eyes sharp in concentration, but his shoulders are hunched a little in what Derek reads as self-consciousness. 

“No, no way,” he says, bucking his hips up off the bed to get Stiles’ attention, covering the ball of each shoulder with the palms of his hands and gently pushing until Stiles is sitting proud, chest forward. “Do you have any idea how many people want you? Everyone who has ever met you, I’m betting. I thought I was going to wolf out in the street, that night I found you with Danny. You were holding his hand and I - my claws - I -” 

“Wow, you were gonna maul a dude for me,” Stiles says, grinning, and Derek has to pull him down, has to coax his mouth open against his own while Stiles concentrates on the much more important task of shifting his hips down into Derek’s until their cocks are trapped together between their bellies, sweat and pre-come and motion building up into an achingly good slide. 

“I’m gonna maul a dude right now,” Derek threatens, licking at the hinge of Stiles’ jaw, struggling to get a hold on his wolf when Stiles stretches out the line of his throat for him, _presents_ for him. 

Stiles laughs and Derek tastes the hum of it against his tongue, chases it deeper with human teeth until he gets Stiles’ pulse rabbit-quick for his mouth. 

“You gotta … we should … how do you want to come?” he manages to ask, groaning when the question makes Stiles writhe down against him. 

“We’ve got forever, right? Like, years. I want years of this, a whole lifetime of you, so we’re not in any real rush, right?” 

“Definitely not,” Derek half-hums, voice rusted up with what Stiles has said, his heart hammering in his chest at the thought of forever, “We’ve got all the time in the world.” 

“Awesome,” Stiles breathes, fumbling up over Derek’s shoulder for the lube he somehow knows Derek keeps in his bedside drawer. “Good to know, but also sorry about your life choices, because you’re now committed long-term to the most impatient over-achiever on the face of the planet. Saddle the fuck up,” he says, sitting back on Derek’s thighs and spreading his knees, reaching behind himself with slick fingers, eyeing Derek’s dick, “because I want that in me.” 

Derek’s cock jerks against his stomach, pre-come pooling in a bite mark Stiles very lovingly sucked into the skin of his pelvis, and Stiles winks at him, shifting back onto his own fingers like this is something he can just do. 

“Looks like that’s two checks in the ‘yes’ column. So are you in?” 

“I’m about to be,” Derek tells him, pushing a dry fingertip in alongside Stiles’, gritting his teeth at the tight grip of his hole. 

“Piss poor dick jokes while we’re fingering me,” Stiles says to the ceiling, eyes closed and apparently blissed out in some kind of rapture, “God, I love us already.” 

 

____

 

“I love _you_ ,” Derek tells him, and he doesn’t wait to do it when he’s inside him, because that would be cliched and Derek knows for a fact that Stiles hates cliches. 

He says it beforehand, because he wants Stiles to know that it isn’t even a little bit about sex. 

He says it when he has Stiles laid out flat on his back, one of his knees up over Derek’s shoulder, his other leg curled high up around Derek’s waist. 

He says it when he’s looking at Stiles, when both of them have paused simply to look at one another, simultaneously marvelling at the fact that they made it here, Stiles’ eyes huge and so brightly brown, shining a little bit when Derek says it because it’s not like Derek hasn’t been swallowing around a lump in his own throat this entire time, totally overwhelmed by how fucking happy he is, how completely and utterly euphoric Stiles makes him feel, sharing himself with Derek like this. 

He says it while he’s rubbing the head of his cock into the slick mess they’ve made of Stiles’ hole, because he wants Stiles so badly it’s making him shake, Stiles looks so good underneath him he can barely bear it, and maybe it is just a little bit about sex. 

“I love you too, obviously. Thanks for catching up and not being a _complete_ nightmare about it,” Stiles will tell him later. Much later. 

 

____

 

But for now; 

 

____

 

“Oh god, I hate you,” Stiles’ hands are knotted in Derek’s hair and his heel is digging into Derek’s ribs. He’s biting at Derek’s mouth in between the swearing and insults, and he’s perfect, absolutely fucking perfect. 

He _keens_ every time Derek sinks in, grinding into him slow and hard, needing them both to feel it. 

He hiccups when Derek pulls right out, the head of his cock pulling every so slightly at his rim, so Derek teases him like that, takes his dick in his hand and works the head in and out of him until he’s almost sobbing. 

“Can I come inside you?” Derek asks, has to ask, because they haven’t talked about it, only went through the rudimentary ‘no condom because my supernatural immune system makes me the only kind of safe bet’ because Stiles had insisted and Stiles’ research is nothing if not relentlessly thorough. 

“Oh god,” Stiles groans, head thrown back against the sheets like Derek’s hurting him, though Derek would tell in an instant if he was, never ever would. “Please, jesus christ please,” he says, pushing himself up onto his elbows so he can reach for Derek, pulling him close so he can kiss him breathless. “Come on, come in me,” he says against Derek’s mouth, “and if it kills me, which I fully expect it to, put ‘Derek Hale did me bareback’ on my gravestone, because this is the only important thing I have ever in my life done.” 

“Okay,” Derek agrees, because he’d agree to anything Stiles asked of him when he’s clinging to him the way he is, back arched and his hips coming up off the bed so he can take Derek deeper, so he can keep them closer. 

When Derek does come, it’s neither with a bang nor a whimper. 

It’s with Stiles’ arms around his neck and Stiles’ tongue in his mouth, Stiles tight and pulsing around him because he’s shaking through his own orgasm, come spilling out of the hand Derek has around his cock, soaking into the skin of his stomach smelling like the heat of Derek’s palm, smelling like the best kind of combination of them both. 

“My prostate and I thank you,” Stiles says into Derek’s neck before they both fall asleep, and Derek is smiling when he does, already impatiently looking forward to years and years of Stiles bizarre and bizarrely hot combination of completely ridiculous home truths and something like the best kind of dirty talk, because he doesn’t mean it to be at all. 

 

____

 

( some time several years later ) 

“They’re way too young to be this tired all the time. They fell asleep in our restaurant last night. Like … at the table. During dinner,” Jackson says, frowning back at where Stiles and Derek are tangled up like a two-person human pretzel, passed out together in the back seat. 

“Right? I mean, Derek is probably almost old enough to need naps, but what’s Stiles’ excuse? He isn’t even working on a new book right now. He does nothing all day long,” Isaac adds, shaking his head. 

“You’re both idiots,” Kira volunteers, and Isaac at least looks chastised. 

There’s silence for a moment, until Scott, who had been dozing on Derek’s shoulder, wakes up for long enough to murmur sleepily, 

“It’s all the sex, man. They’re at it like rabbits.” 

Jackson’s frown deepens, and Isaac blushes. 

Stiles stirs, accidentally rousing Derek, who slumps further in under Stiles' chin.

“Sshhh, stop squirming, don't make me get the handcuffs,” he says, still in sleep, and Kira has to bite into the palm of her own hand to keep from laughing out loud. 

 

____  
____  
____

**Author's Note:**

> I own none of these characters, though lord knows I or any of you would do far better things with them than Jeff Davis does.
> 
> I find myself in desperate need of TW friends, so if anyone would like to improve my life with their friendship please please please accost me on [tumblr](http://mockturtletale.tumblr.com/), I would be ever so grateful.


End file.
